Survey shows improvement in Grant County’s Zero Suicide Initiative
By Logan Bagett on Friday, November 3rd, 2023 in Eastern/Southeast Oregon News More Top Stories
GRANT COUNTY – “Not one suicide is okay,” said Community Counseling Solutions Director Kimberly Lindsay on KJDY’s Coffee Time. The public and behavioral health agency call their efforts around prevention the ‘Zero Suicide Initiative,’ because the only acceptable number for the Grant County community is zero.
Lindsay says while our local CCS isn’t perfect, there have been vast improvements over the last few years in how the agency are doing with their suicide prevention and response efforts, according to their latest survey:
“It really pleases me to say that [in] the survey that we took earlier this spring, our lowest score is a 3.2 [out of 5], and out highest score is a 4.7. The 4.7 is coming in the training areas; the 3.2 is coming in the improvement area.”
Lindsay said that is an improvement from 2019, when the average score was 1.4 across all domains. Today the average score is 4.0. Lindsay said CCS staff are doing more debriefing and more work with first responders.
Anyone in Grant County who may me having suicidal thoughts can call Community Counseling Solutions during regular business hours at (541) 575-1466. Otherwise, call 9-1-1, and dispatch can patch the caller through to the on-call crisis team. Also, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached by dialing 9-8-8.
Listen to the full podcast with CCS Director Kimberly Lindsay here:
